What gives: the 20ft "gappers" at lights?

[looshfoo]

this always bothered me too until a few years back my mom got rear ended in our truck (i miss that thing ) by some guy in a teeny tiny honda. totalled the truck. his car was in pieces. (our truck taught him not to run into another one hehe). she was in the hospital for a week and ended up causing a chain reaction for about 3 cars in front of her. she had her wheels turned a little and was spaced, but just the force from the car pushed the truck so hard that it didnt really matter.

[Hollow]

Originally Posted by looshfoo

this always bothered me too until a few years back my mom got rear ended in our truck (i miss that thing ) by some guy in a teeny tiny honda. totalled the truck. his car was in pieces. (our truck taught him not to run into another one hehe). she was in the hospital for a week and ended up causing a chain reaction for about 3 cars in front of her. she had her wheels turned a little and was spaced, but just the force from the car pushed the truck so hard that it didnt really matter.

Also more than likely the Honda being low to the road went under the bed of the truck some and raised the rear tires off the asphalt causing it to slide more so than usual. But I may be wrong.

[damnpoor]

Originally Posted by jsteinb95

+1
That's what I learned.

Me too. I was told to stop far enough back that you can see the tires touching the ground on the car in front of you. That's about one car length.

[looshfoo]

Originally Posted by Hollow

Also more than likely the Honda being low to the road went under the bed of the truck some and raised the rear tires off the asphalt causing it to slide more so than usual. But I may be wrong.

yeah, the truck was lifted. but i was pretty young at the time and had no idea about any of that kind of stuff. the car caught the rear axle when it went under and made the bed of the truck roll up under it

[abraxas]

The gap thing is defensive ... for both accidents, and smash and grabbers / hijackers.
We have a lot of that here (south africa) so you always have space to get away.

[troutfishinemt]

Strictly cage related, I don't really GAF about the gap - unless it's holding people up... when someone is sitting at the junction of a "turn only" lane and the "straight through or turn" split - and they sit 20 feet back, while I could squeeze by and go ahead three or four car lengthts if they just moved up, that pisses me off... The traffic here is so bad most of the time, it really does become a question of a left turn lane or a "no right on red" lane getting tied up because of the gappers - and their lack of hitting the go-pedal when the fecking light turns green is also an issue.

My GF thinks a green light is an invitation to start thinking about gently applying throttle to her Hyundai SUV.

Conversely, she'll lock up the brakes for a yellow that she could easily roll through.

Women.

[Tailgate]

Okay, now let's turn to the cagers who ride their brake lights. WTF? It's another helmet scratcher. I can go 80 miles and not once even apply my brakes while some cager in front of me will use use them 1000+ times. Cager will TG the F out of traffic ahead or just uses brakes million times instead of simple half-decent acceleration/deceleration management, etc. Okay, some might say "Don't get locked up, Tailgate over this, it's not that serious." but, geez, when I see brake lights it can be annoying when 90% of the time it's a false alarm. My question is: Why can't all people drive intelligently?